Diphtheria, a Once Vanquished Killer of Children, Is Resurgent
In a crowded Somali hospital ward, the air hangs heavy with the sound of desperate, rasping breaths. Children lie bundled in faded blankets, their tiny bodies straining against an invisible enemy. White membranes coat their throats, their necks swollen like ripe fruit. This is diphtheria – a disease once vanquished by modern medicine – now making a deadly comeback in the shadows of war and climate catastrophe.
For Qurraisha Mukhtar, the nightmare began in early September. Her two youngest children – 1-year-old Salman and his 2-year-old sister – fell ill with fever and cough. Within days, their breathing became shallow, punctuated by terrifying gasps. "Their throats turned white like paper," she recalls, her voice trembling. "I begged a traditional healer for help, but it was too late."
Salman didn't make it. His small body grew still as his mother watched helplessly.
The resurgence of diphtheria across Somalia tells a story of systems collapsing under multiple pressures. Years of conflict have shredded public health infrastructure, while increasingly severe droughts have displaced communities and weakened immune systems. Most critically, deep-seated mistrust of vaccines has left entire generations unprotected against a preventable disease.
"We're seeing the perfect storm," says Dr. Amina Hassan, who runs the overwhelmed Banadir Hospital pediatric ward. "When people have lost faith in the system, when they're hungry and terrified, the simplest solutions become the hardest to deliver."
The statistics are grim. The World Health Organization reports a 300% increase in diphtheria cases in Somalia this year, with children under five bearing the brunt. In neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya, similar patterns emerge as climate refugees carry the bacteria across porous borders.
What makes this outbreak particularly chilling is diphtheria's ferocity. Spread through airborne droplets, it releases a toxin that can suffocate its victims within days. Yet it's almost entirely preventable with a $3 vaccine. The tragedy lies not in the complexity of the solution, but in the unraveling of trust – between communities and governments, between science and suffering populations.
As international organizations scramble to deliver emergency vaccines and oxygen supplies, the real battle may be fought in conversations across smoky cooking fires and in the crowded corridors of displacement camps. Until then, the hospital wards of Somalia will continue to fill with children gasping for breath, their small bodies caught in the crossfire of war, weather, and doubt.